Goodnight 2011

Another year is ending. When I think of this year I immediately fall into the trap of grief. We lost friends, family and promises this year, and thus it was a hard year.

However, to delve into my memories I find a lot of amazing things that also occurred. Chef and Gypsy got married and I officiated their wedding! I got a raise at work in the beginning of the year and a promotion at the end of this year. I got engaged and had a wonderful engagement party. I went on four amazing vacations, one to Oregon to visit the Costello family whom I love and adore, then we went to Coloma with Patrick and Bobbi and camped for the weekend which was great. We lived a glorious week in Las Vegas with Michelle's family and it was heavenly. And we made our yearly trek down to So-Cal with Patrick to the blizzcon and got to hang with Michelle's sister and brother in law at their new beautiful house (it has a pool!).

I finished my year of volunteering committment at the Contra Costa Crisis Center, and continue to volunteer there now, almost six months later. I've even been trained to do some staff shifts. I look forward to seeing how my time there evolves over the next few weeks, months, years.

I ended my time at Family Support Services of the Bay Area after a year and a half. My duties at Windrush and grad school just didn't allow much time to support any families other than my own, so I resigned.

Windrush has given me so much in experience. I really hope it survives. If you wanna learn more about it check out the El Cerrito Patch, warning on the comments they get ugly.

I started grad school and while it was one of the hardest most harrowing experiences of my life I made it through. I met some amazing people that I will be working with for the next three years and I'm excited to learn and gain more experience.

And I published my novel, which makes me feel like I'm more in line with my own personal wants. I feel balanced with work, school and writing. Getting engaged and working on wedding plans with Michelle is making me feel like "family" is more balanced, we really want to nest and create our own little clan and every step gets us closer to that. We're trying hard to re-connect with family as adults and create a support system for ourselves, as well as offering support and love to reciprocate.

I've been narrowing down my social committments. Trying to keep it to band practice and dinner here and there, it isn't what I want, but school and work and wedding plans kind of demand it. I look forward to re-connecting with some of my friends in the new year, I need to be on more of a schedule to hang with them.

I normally kick off a new year with a long list of todos, but this year I'm really going to take the time to just be more healthy. Less meat, less soda, less sugar, more veggies and fruits, water and whole grains and more exercise. I really want to look and feel great at my wedding and even if I don't lose a single pound, as long as I've changed my lifestyle towards a healthier one I truly believe I'll have achieved that.

So wherever you are I wish you a happy and safe New Years Eve!

PS- I published my book here is a link to it- Qualia
The best way to help if you're interested is to obviously buy it, but to also post about it on social media sites, buy it for people that you think may be interested in it and or tell people about it. Also writing reviews on amazon.com or wherever you purchased the book is great too! Thanks, sincerely yours,

Stephan Lawrence Theodore Clifford

Graded Incomplete

I’m open to listening to your plight, just don’t assume I don’t have a plight all my own…

Lord knows on the sliding scale you pulled the shitty straw…

I’m willing to walk in your shoes…

Don’t assume that just because I’m “white” that I haven’t gotten used to the siren’s ring…

All these expectations of who I’m supposed to be has got me feeling like I’m failing…

Maybe starting out expecting to fail is a better way? How about you sit down here and tell me all about it. Amuse me, will you, because lord knows I can just go home tonight…

Is it wrong that while you speak all I can think about is how much I’d like to kiss you? Wrap my arms around you, feel you against my heart. If only the world had born me differently. ..

If I say the wrong thing now will I always be a bigot in your eyes? All I wanna do is impress upon you that I’m not…that great great great, who wasn’t all that great…I’m not him, you ain’t her. The world ain’t perfect, but maybe together we can make it better?

I’m not superman, no matter how much that I pray I was. I just want to make the world a better place. And you know I’m not perfect, stupid shit is bound to fly out my mouth, but when I look upon you I see something so beautiful that my heart screams. You’re waiting for the world to let you live, and all I want is for you to notice me when you walk by…

My people came here to escape persecution, only to buy your people and persecute them. Will we ever learn from history’s lessons, or are we destined to be graded incomplete?

Now that the haves are becoming the have nots, the recession has left us cold while the 1% burn money to stay warm…

But nothing has really changed for you, struggling for every dollar you make, while the rest of the world doesn’t believe you’re worthy, the oppressed becoming the greedy spoiled brats in the eyes of the oppressor…

Pay into a social security system you’ll never live long enough to draw from, the smog from the 80 corridor filling your lungs as you run through cracked asphalt lined with weeds. ..

That’s ok, my parents have smoked, drank and fatty foods themselves into a destitute life, reaping the benefits of your oppression, so none of that money will be left for me either. ..

Maybe we can rebuild a better world once we’re standing on the ashes of the one they’ve so easily destroyed…

I just hope you’re willing to take me as I am, and I hope I’m able to understand you, as you are…

Bleh

I start graduate school tomorrow. Whenever I say that to someone they smile and get excited for me. It must be unnerving when I respond with a less than enthusiastic facial expression, that or I've gotten good at faking it.

Lots of things are happening because of this momentous occasion. It means that now I'm locked in to school for the next three years. It may be like school I know, or it could be completely different or a hybrid of old and new experiences. It's not that I don't like change, it's just that I was becoming pretty comfortable ya know...having a social life, having time to pursue my artistic pursuits, having the house clean most of the time. School basically means that my regular life stops and school life begins, and while the information (I have even found the textbook to be a great read!) is something I can totally geek out on, I'm just not really fucking looking forward to being a student again. This makes me feel like a jerk since I know people that are desparate to be in the situation I'm in, back in school, already accepted. I mean the grad school application process is torturous. It's like selling yourself to a masked man unsure of what that might mean for your future. Let's be real though, without graduate school and going into even more debt (BA, House, Graduate School, Wedding, Kids, who's not in debt these days?) there just isn't any possible way to make decent money, and even talking to people with PhDs, lemme tell ya, there just is no guarantee on that American Dream anymore, no amount of hardwork and education means you'll survive this recession shitstorm.

It's been hard enough balancing writing, photography, cleaning, wedding planning (I got engaged in June), golf, band practice with two jobs, somewhat of a social life, volunteering and hey maybe my fiance might wanna see me sometime. Did I mention the three bulldogs I love? Now I'm adding in school, and I imagine this won't be the 'show up randomly, the tests will be easy if I read the book' school I managed to skate through to earn my BA. Now that doesn't mean I didn't work my assets off to get my BA, but it was easy for me. The classes that were hard I put more effort into, but the easier classes I could kinda skip to focus my energy on the harder ones (this only bit me in the ass once). 

It's been a year and  half since I got done with undergrad. It was a ten year ordeal I tell ya to finish. I dropped out a ton of times because I just couldn't afford not to work. Finally after a wall of dog food almost crushed me and a friend of mine I quit my job at Petco and begged my then girlfriend (now fiance) to let me go to school full time and just get the goddamn thing done, to my surprise and great gratitude she agreed. So in just over a year I powered through 12-16 units a quarter and worked harder than I've ever worked. I got done, and didn't get into grad school and didn't find work for three months. Man I wish that version of myself would show up and kick me in the balls so I could appreciate tomorrow more. lol...

So during those three months of no work I finished a novel that had been rattling in my brains for years. So you see the real issue here right? Tomorrow means I didn't get published, and I ran out of time to self publish and get started on that publishing company. I mean this is really mostly my own fault. I should have just done it, but I got scared and tried to involve equally crazy busy other people to my plan and then I couldn't spearhead it anymore, so it fell through.

Tomorrow doesn't mean I can't complete my plans, it just means I didn't get them done before undertaking this new endeavor, and I'm disappointed in myself. It also means some things are going to have to go from my life. I will have to start putting social events into the lotto machine to see which one I can attend while reading 100+ pages a week and writing papers. I hope friends understand that my appearances will be random now. I hope that relationships I've worked really hard to attain and maintain (thank god for facebook really) will still be there in three years when I'm done and can finally (if the gods allow it) have a full time decent paying (I've never made anything over 15k a year so ya know my expectations are way low) full time job with benefits towards my licensure.

My wise mind says that I may lose some friends and then gain new ones, but I really don't want new friends, or at least my emotion mind says that.

I have so much to be thankful for. So I feel like an ass for even being depressed or feeling stressed out about this. But ya know I figured blogging about it was better than just sitting here feeling sorry for myself.

I'm looking forward to meeting new people, learning new things and applying the things I've learned in my previous schooling/work/volunteer ventures. I'm also lucky enough to have a friend from my undergrad in my classes with me, which knowing someone on the first day totally makes life a lot easier. So it appears I've just therapied myself, I feel a ton better.

Snowed In, a thriller by S.L. Clifford

Welcome to the Russell Bed and Breakfast. Let all the problems of the modern world fade away in this rustic and quaint getaway. A short drive to the lovely crystal clear blue waters of Lake Tahoe, or fantastic ski slopes, no matter what time of year the Russell Bed and Breakfast is your destination for peace and quiet.

This is what the guests at the Russell Bed and Breakfast expected one cold winter weekend. Unfortunately for them, they discovered just how secluded a destination they were in when people started ending up dead and all forms of communication were severed due to a blizzard.

So please kick your shoes off, curl up in bed and join us at the Russell Bed and Breakfast, where our guests will soon realize just how terrifying their weekend can be snowed in.

(available soon, check back in a few months)